> This is not a situation to>: fairly say all things being held equal the inhabitants died of>: disease. The inhabitants, probably more than anywhere else in spanish>: colonize america, suffered more acutely from the affects of spanish>: colonization, disease being one of many contributing factors.

>See above. Utterly refuted.

I knew that would get you going.

Whats utterly refuted. Oh you mean the spansish built palaces for the
native peoples and made the amerinds their masters while the spansih
toiled in holes searching for ore. Alas the spanish also provided
these peoples ample time to aquired their favorite sources of
nutrition and disease simply came as a result of the newly aquired
loafing lifestyle. And they (the spansih) did not interfere with the
natural state of their society in any fashion whatso ever, right?

1. The overexploitation was noted not in one but two references.
2. When your considering a 80%, 85%, 90%, 95% mortality rate the
contributing factors are very important. Lets say 95% percent
mortality rate and only 5% can be attributed by 'other' factors. thats
100% more who who have survived if the contributing factors were
removed. Now for the record are you saying a doubling of the survival;
rate is insignificant, or are you blowing off hot gas again.

>The primary so vastly overshadows secondary

Ummm, is this the anthropological quantiation you learn in your
training. Numbers? Or maybe you don't know how to analyze these types
of situations. Do you have any direct refence stating the isolated
casues of death from that period.

>contributing factors as to make their elevation to pseudo-primaries one>of denial, not honest scholarship.

It depends on how you look at it, from a mathematical perspective one
has to consider the problem of astronomical decline for example.

Epidemic 1 all things being held equal kills 900 per 1000 leaving 100.
Epidemic 2 all things being held equal kills 90 per 100 remaing.
Epidemic 3 all things being held equal kills 9 of 10 remaining
leaving 1

This is an instance were the contributing factors no matter how
miniscule are important, and can make the difference between hundreds,
thousands or a significant part of the population remaining. Each
epidemic as it occurs before repopulation magnifies teh affects of
contriuting factors.

To look soley at mortality rates and say miniscule changes (less than
20%) are not-significant is foolishness of the worst kind and denial
of the best kind.

>: In addition when the spanish arrived the inhabitants were already>: in a conflict with island hopping 'cannabal' which the diseases and>: the removal of vital strongholds in the greator antilles probably put>: the colonized arawak indians at a disadvantage. Since the spanish had>: no qualms about killing cannabals I suspect that the victors proably>: placed themselves in equally perilous situation.

>Oh mega piffle. What next? The Arawaks were dining on the indigenous of>the Cannaries also? We _know_ what happened before the Columbian Contact>events in the Cannaries. Again, see the literature as an alternative to>speculations.

Where do you think I got this piffle from?
According to 2 sources the Carrib Indians were presented as
cannibalistic and one forthright discusses the decline of the Arawak
in teh smaller islands of the carribean. Do you have better
information, instead of this dibbling doubletalk put forth the data,
lets see!

>: >>* That populations in the Americas dropped up to 90% or more when Europeans >: >>brought their diseases with them. (Note that African slaves also brought>: >>diseases with them -- things like Yellow Fever and Malaria which decimated>: >>American cities from time to time until the mosquito link was found!)

>: Since this is probably the best example of contributing factors.

>Nonsense yet again! The demographic event of the early Contact Period is not>"explained" by "contributing factors" which emerge one hundred years after>the events.

Where did I say that it was? this is a quote from Joel and Lynn
Gazis-Sax <gazissax@best.com. Take it to them, I was refuting it.
I was refuting his:

Healthy NWers >-----(disease)-----> 90% mortality. he not I introduced
the diseases which appeared as described below. get your head on
strait man!

> Both of these pathogens are environmentally vector-limited, yet>the event of New World human die-back is known to be from the Circumpolars>in the North, to the Circumpolars in the south. _All_ of the OW isolates>got clobbered, even those outside of the ranges of pathogens which became>vector-established well-after near-complete population collapses were on>record.